Skyrim:Block

Block allows you to reduce damage from melee and ranged combat, using a shield, a torch, a one-handed weapon, or a two-handed weapon. As perks are gained, Block allows you to do additional damage, disarm your opponent, and gain other benefits as below. The Block skill tree has a total of 9 perks, requiring a total of 13 perk points to fill.

In-game Description: The art of blocking an enemy's blows with a shield or weapon. Blocking reduces the damage and staggering from physical attacks.

To block, hold the Left Hand (block) control. You can block with a shield, a torch, a one-handed weapon, or a two-handed weapon. To block with a shield or torch, equip one to your left hand. To block with a one-handed or two-handed weapon, equip it before using the block control. To block with a one-handed weapon, equip it in your right hand, as equipping it in the left hand is considered dual-wielding. You cannot block if you have a weapon or spell equipped in your left hand.

While blocking, your movement speed is reduced unless you have the Block Runner perk.

The Elemental Protection perk blocks damage to your health from spells that hit you from any direction, not just spells that hit your shield. Its damage reduction stacks with other spell resistances (e.g., resist fire) but it will reduce only health damage. The perk does not reduce damage to stamina from frost spells or to magicka from lightning spells

Blocking reduces the damage that an actor (including player character) receives to his health from a physical attack. The block cap is 85%, which means with a successful block you can negate 85% of the incoming damage. Most shields and all weapons will be able to reach the cap with 100 block skill and all shield wall perks. Blocking stacks on top of damage reduction from armor, leading to a possible 97% damage reduction.

Only base armor rating of a shield affects blocked damage, although current armor values for the shield will still contribute to overall damage reduction. The base armor ratings of shields can be found on the Armor page.

Fortify Block Enchantment: How much extra block you get from enchantments. (18% = 0.18 and 95% = 0.95)

45 and 30 is the base value of blocking with a shield and weapon (or a torch) (respectively)

0.2 is the scaling factor of blocking.

Shield Wall Perk: How much extra block you get from shield wall. (10% = 0.1 and 50% = 0.5)

It is possible that Fortify Block increases blocked damage by (1 + BlockMod)*(1 + BlockPowerMod) or by (1 + BlockMod + BlockPowerMod), where BlockMod and BlockPowerMod are increases to block effectiveness from enchantments and alchemy effects.

Tapping the attack button while blocking will bash your opponent with a shield or weapon. Bashing is an attack to an opponent's health; it carries a chance of staggering an opponent and of interrupting an opponent's power attack. This applies to dragons as well, whose "power attacks" are shouts. If you acquire the Power Bash, Deadly Bash, or Disarming Bashperks, press and hold—instead of tapping—the attack button while blocking to achieve the associated benefit. You can bash (with or without benefits from perks) with two-handed weapons as well as shields; but if equipped with a bow, you can perform only a regular bash. Bashing with a torch will set opponents afire.

The damage that a bash inflicts depends on the base armor rating (for shields) or the base damage rating (for weapons). Weapons deal more damage than shields. A Power Bash inflicts 3 times more damage.

Blocking an incoming attack uses a small amount of stamina. Bashing consumes a notable amount (35), while power bashing uses significantly more (55).

If you consume vegetable soup or any food item that regenerates stamina over 720 seconds, you can shield bash or power bash an unlimited number of times, resulting in your target being continually staggered (or stun locked) and unable to attack you. This will slowly kill them and level your Block very quickly while protecting you from damage. If you want to level Block quickly, do not take the Deadly Bash perk, as even on Master difficulty you will quickly kill bosses with shield bash.

You can also quickly increase your block skill by engaging a weak opponent, such as a single mudcrab, and continually blocking its repeated attacks. Holding down your block button should increase your blocking by at least 2-3 levels per minute. This only works effectively at lower levels. At early-medium levels, stronger opponents can do the same thing: e.g., wolves and their variants. It is more convenient if you can position yourself next to a barrier (such as a tree). This will reduce the amount of maneuvering you will need to do because the opponent will often attack you from different angles. Standing next to a tree reduces the frequency of this.

For mid-high levels, the same technique can be used against giants and mammoths. If you wish to level up your block skill later in the game, some ideal opponents are the Draugr Deathlord or Dwarven Centurion, because of their powerful physical attacks. By continuously blocking such attacks, healing your health and stamina as necessary, you can raise your block skill from its base level to level 75 in about 10 minutes, and to 100 in about 20 minutes.

Using 4 Block enchantments (40% each on shield, hands, finger and neck), the Warrior Stone, the Lovers' Comfort bonus, and the Lovers Stone (via the Aetherial Crown) Block can go from 15 to 100 in under 13 minutes by engaging a single giant on Legendary difficulty.

If your blocks are very strong, you can get the last points by blocking dragons after forcing them to land (about 5 hits by an Ancient Dragon for one level when over 90).

If you got into a brawl, you can equip a shield and a healing spell (or otherwise restore your health) to block attacks and protect against too much damage. Bashing also increases points toward raising your Block level, while brawling or otherwise.

In Skyrim, Block skill gains are based on the amount of damage resisted when blocking, regardless of the shield used. Whether you use a Light Armor shield or a Heavy Armor shield, it levels up just the same. Also, blocking with a shield does not contribute to raising the Light Armor or Heavy Armor skill, only Blocking (you cannot Block if you want to level up the Armor trees instead).

Enchantments, potions, spells and skill perks that increase the percentage of damage blocked will increase the XP gained per block (up to the block cap of 85% or armor cap of 80%).

Performing shield bashes increases the skill considerably less than simply blocking, and costs a lot of stamina. Use enchants, potions, and food to regenerate faster, if you choose to level it this way.

Experience is gained when using weapons for blocking or bashing, as well as when using shields.

Regenerate Health potions and enchantments can help staying alive while training, potentially allowing to leave the game unattended. This can also be accomplished with natural health regeneration during brawling sessions with NPCs or fighting very weak enemies like skeevers, though skill gains will be very slow.

Using the Spellbreaker shield allows you to train Block against tougher, magic-wielding opponents, such as conjured Dremora Lords.

Blocking is also useful when being bombarded by arrows. Deflect Arrows perk increases effectiveness of blocking arrows, but, since the hard cap of blocking is 85%, the Deflect Arrows perk does not reduce the damage to zero but only by 85% (and you can get this damage reduction percentage without it).

Armor rating high enough to reduce physical damage by 85% (the hard cap for physical damage resistance from armor rating) combined with physical damage resistance from blocking (the hard cap for which is 85%) can aggregate to as much as 97% total physical damage resistance.

With the Block Runner perk, one can sneak at running speeds while holding block. This, and a similar effect with Shield Charge, are deemed to be bugs by the USKP which, as of version 1.3.2, disables the perks completely while sneaking.

The Block Runner perk benefit continues even if the perk is later removed.

Weapons are worse for blocking than even the weakest hide shield: with no perks and skill of 0 a weapon would block 35% of damage and hide shield would block 48%, with no perks and skill of 100 a weapon will block 42,5% and hide shield will block 52,5%.

Sometimes, when fighting with the Quick Reflexes perk, the slow time effect will continue indefinitely if you shield bash an opponent while they are power attacking. A variety of methods can be used to break the effect, however the only fool-proof way is to stand in front of an enemy and block until they power attack you again.